The Emergence of Green Information Technology (Green IT): the Uses of ICTs for Corporate Environmental Sustainability

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NSF STS Dissertation Improvement Grant Manuel Castells and Jingfang LiuAbstract:This project is a study of green Information Technology (green IT), which has emerged as a cutting-edge form of sustainable technological innovation and one of the key social and business phenomena in the past few years. The research will be grounded in a process view of communication and change and move to explore the values of environmental sustainability, the high tech industry's evolving orientation and struggle toward environmental sustainability, and their adoption of changes in organizational behavior surrounding various types of green IT innovation. Intellectual meritThe study will address the following primary research questions: What are the meanings of green IT and IT greening? Why are high-tech firms adopting green IT innovation and why can green IT be structured as a necessity or an opportunity? How are high-tech firms adopting green IT innovation and what communication processes are involved in both the discursive and practice change of IT greening and organizational change? The project proposes a mixed method using qualitative case studies to inform a quantitative study of industry-wide green IT innovation. The case study will also be supplemented with a preliminary set of interviews with green IT experts and change agents from diverse organizations and agencies. As the main methodology, the case study will involve several comparative case studies of selected IT firms using a combined method of in-depth interviews, critical document review, and participant observation. Broader impactWith empirical data from a leading-edge technological and organizational innovation, this project will help advance academic inquiry in the fields of communication, science-technology-society, organizational change, technological innovation, and business and environment. The project also bears crucial meanings by providing valuable lessons and reality check for business and organizations at large as they consider strategies about how to move towards being environmentally sustainable as well as economically viable through green IT.